Rapha Continental & Alex Stieda in Alberta, Canada

“For some reason I thought, you know what, maybe I could pretend to go up the road and take a pee. So I sorta noodled up the side of the road, kinda got, you know a few hundred meters ahead. The road was really twisty and turny out of Paris, and I looked back and they couldn’t see me for a second, and I just throttled it man, just put in 12, out of the saddle, just went as hard as I could… Within 10 minutes I had a couple minute lead—and I was out of sight, out of mind.”

Alex Stieda’s storytelling of he and the 7-Eleven team’s first Tour de France experience in the new Rapha Continental short is compelling. Not unlike a delicious appetizer worthy of a main course, I wished the video was longer.

“I don’t know! Let’s go do it! Let’s go to the Tour de France.”

The quote at the top details the genesis of his donning the Maillot Juane for one day at the ’86 Grande Boucle. Love the “Let’s go to the Tour de France!” quote too. Shows how nieve the team was yet simultaneously ready for anything that was thrown at them.

As always, the Conti videos provide copious images of Rapha livery wrapped in slo-motion suffering and dramatic high-speed scenes of sweeping descents. I, for one, am not against this.

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Boredom Centraal

Cycleboredom is dedicated to the life and culture surrounding bikes: the latest gear, industry idiocy, cyclocross (*lots* of CX), pro cycling, velo-utiliarianism, and bike advocacy recognizing both national and hyper-local efforts. Sound like something you want to be a part of? Let's talk!